1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of information handling systems and more particularly relates to supporting channel-to-connector mapping for multi-channel media applications using an information handling system.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One example of the increasing value and use of information handling systems, such as personal computers (PCs), involves PC applications for media processing, such as video, graphic, and audio file processing. For example, as PC audio applications grow in popularity, conventional media processing and distribution opportunities have emerged. PC-based audio accelerators mimic conventional consumer audio electronics by providing dedicated input/output (I/O) functions. Two popular uses for multiple output channels are home theatre sound applications and multi-zone music applications. A popular sound configuration for home theatre consists of six channels or 5.1 sound (front right and left stereo, center front, low frequency effects (LFE) plus left and right rear speakers). An encoding algorithm employed on DVD disks for multi-channel audio is Dolby Digital (AC3) technology by Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (Dolby).
Media files are typically stored and organized on a PC in compressed digital formats, such as MP3 or WMA for audio files. Media files include audio, video, and image files and combinations of the foregoing files. With regard to audio files, conventional PCs are capable of decoding multiple streams of compressed digital audio simultaneously. However, transporting uncompressed streams across a standard I/O bus, such as PCI or 3GIO, in real time creates system bottlenecks, which slow down other tasks running on the system or degrade the quality of the audio streams due to missed audio samples. To efficiently support multi-channel audio decode and playback, the audio files should be transported to an audio accelerator in compressed format and decoded locally using an audio digital signal processor (DSP).
Home audio distribution systems exist which use dedicated I/O and require separate audio inputs for multistream audio support. Professional multi-channel PC cards can be configured to take the output of a third party decoder, such as the Dolby Digital decoder, and route the signals to a fixed number of output jacks or take multiple audio input streams and route them to the same outputs. All of these implementations use the PC host processor to decode compressed audio. The PC card becomes simply a stream router. These cards use the lion's share of the PC's interface bus bandwidth and recommend that no other applications are running while multi-channel audio is active.
Thus, conventionally configured information handling systems are unable to conveniently support multi-channel media applications, especially when the number of output connectors are constrained to less than the number of supported channels.